if i was allowed to talk to my son

i'd be able to see how he's taking all this, and that would be worth a great deal right now. wonder if he knows that none of this court stuff you Faithful Readers read about earlier is his fault. (i think it's safe to assume that if you're reading this, you've read the prior posts too.) but i can't be there for him right now, when he likely needs me- and that truly sucks. i can't even tell anyone to check on him for me, and that's extremely frustrating. i'm sure his mom's doing what she can to comfort him, but that's rather ironic, to say the least. i know it would certainly do me some good to talk to him. i'm crossing my fingers that in about 4 more days i'll get the opportunity to. i wonder if he'll be at the hearing. hmmm. i doubt it. i definitely think he's mature enough for the court to have someone talk to him. they'd likely choose to do that in private, rather than in front of his mother or me. but i can also see how they might not want to involve him. this i shall leave to the wisdom of the court, for the moment....like i have any choice in the matter. but hey, i'm just wingin' it here, what do i know about court procedures? thinking about this is making my head spin a little. tell you this, though: i do know my boy, and he's a smart kid. i'm sure he's turned some of this over in his own mind. if he's learned anything from me, it's to think for himself.

i suppose if you're 12, it's likely a little easier to get distracted from things like this for a while- and if that's true in Loren's case, i'm grateful for that. i'm not sure anyone can really understand quite what this experience is like without going through it, and i don't wish it on anyone....except, of course, people that actually DO treat their kids like crap- they should be horsewhipped.

wonder if it's illegal for me to try to send psychic brain waves, like....attempt to telepathically direct pseudo-meta-hyper-psionic energy through the space-time continuum....or hey, if i believed in a god, i could pray to that god (those gods?...i'm not picky) to snap his/her/their finger(s), or wave their multi-jointed prehensile tails, whatever, and send down a shimmering (or not shimmering....it could be invisible, or flat, dull grey for that matter.....like i said- not picky) wave or beam or bolt or surge thingamajig of spiritual energy from the Great Beyond that reconstituted in Loren's brain as an entire conversation (though i'd settle for an all-encompassing feeling of calm and well-being); but i don't believe in a god, or pray, so that's out anyway.

still....you have to wonder if that would be illegal; i mean, after all, a god would have to be considered a third party, and the conversation thing would likely have to be considered a form of contact, so....i suppose it therefore follows that if i did do that, or i was to bid those of you who DO believe in a god to perform this function for me- and, of course, assuming i'm wrong about the whole existence-of-god thing- that that would also be illegal. but i think it would be me that got in trouble for both me and the god- i doubt they'd have much luck prosecuting him (or her....not picky). so all you True Believers, feel free to pray for something if you will (might i suggest something vaguely along the lines of "a reasonably-beneficial-to-all-involved outcome"), but please don't pray that your particular personification of a Great Spirit delivers any message on my behalf, or we could all be in a lot of trouble.

but then again, on the other hand, it could be argued that that was an 'act of God', like a hurricane or something. just not as messy.

what exactly is the language on the restraining order? let's see....

it says, "Respondent is restrained from coming near and from having any contact whatsoever, in person or through others, by phone, mail, or any means, directly or indirectly, except for mailing or service of process of court documents by a 3rd party or contact by respondent's lawyer(s)..."

hmmm. i suppose that "any means" part precludes the psionic telepathy. and the god(s) thing too. but the "contact whatsoever" part is interesting. what exactly does that mean? does contact necessarily encompass two-way communication? i don't think so, because it also says "by mail", and that's a one-way thing. which kind of brings me to another point i've been thinking of, which is that my employer finally got my wages up to date (yay! and phew!) and since i pay child support for Loren directly to his mother, i wonder if simply sending her the check (with no attached message or anything, of course) would be considered breaking the terms of the restraining order? not gonna risk that. i'll play it safe and have a check in my pocket at the hearing. then i can pass it to the court clerk, who can pass it to the judge (if that's in order), who'd then likely pass it back to the clerk to pass to Loren's mom or something......like asking Susie Watkins out in study hall.

but i digress. obviously you don't have to be there in person, or establish two-way communication, to break the terms of the restraining order. but i think it does sort of imply that the individual 'protected' in the order knows the contact in question is from the respondent. if the respondent sent the petitioner an anonymous message from an unidentifiable location that in no way identified the respondent and didn't reference anything they had in common....say, something that read only "The sun rises in the east," i think it would be hard to call that "contact" (more likely i'd call that "junk mail"), but if the respondent sent it, or caused someone else to send it, i think they'd be found guilty of breaking the terms of the restraining order if they were caught. but is that really "contact"? hmmmm.

i think it's safe to assume that contact doesn't necessarily mean communication, at least not in any conventional sense. just because you don't "get it" doesn't mean there was no contact. do we have to have some sort of mutual understanding for us to communicate? i think we do. but like the last example, if i know when i type BLEEZLEPLORP that it means the word _____, but i only type BLEEZLEPLORP, and though i know what it means you don't, that's not communication, right? no way. but if i send it to you anonymously, written on a sheet of paper, i'd have to consider that contact, though without communication.

so: communication => contact, and therefore it follows that: contact <= communication.

ok. but if i could, say, astrally project my disembodied consciousness into your room, and you couldn't tell i was there, does that constitute contact? i don't think so. i think contact implies interaction in some form or other- some knowledge, or at the very least some suspicion, on the part of the contacted one that they've been contacted. each participant in the contact would have to be aware that they were in the presence of either the person or message, however undecipherable, of the other. now, if i projected myself like that into your room, and i was fully aware that it was impossible for you to detect me, i don't think that would be contact. if i look at you through my magic crystal ball that's not contact. but if i project myself into your room and try but fail to make you aware of my presence, then i suppose i'd be attempting to make contact. and i suppose by the exact language quoted above, that wouldn't be illegal- as long as i failed?

very confusing.

they should make it read "having any, or attempting to have any contact...". that would be much more airtight. maybe i should propose that to the judge? prob'ly not.

oh but wait, i didn't read the whole thing....there's also a part that says, "Respondent is restrained from causing petitioner physical harm, bodily injury, asault, including sexual assault, and from molesting, harassing, threatening, or stalking" the petitioner.

i suppose that looking at you through my magic crystal ball, or projecting my consciousness into your room, could certainly be construed as "stalking".

and now that i read that carefully, isn't "causing petitioner physical harm" and "bodily injury" redundant? guess they really are trying to cover all the bases.

but here's an interesting information-superhighway question (which, i suppose, we should ask the Expert, Al Gore about): if i was to type a message directed at/to Loren's mom on this site, and she was to log on and read it, would that be considered making contact? or harassment? that's certainly debatable. personally, i have a hard time seeing how it could; the website is passive, and users have to resolve the address through their own actions. i think to be guilty of attempting to make contact, i'd have to intend she saw it. i suppose it could be argued that that intention is fundamentally implied by the "directed at/to" in the example, so that would be true. but, let me say to any law enforcement or judicial representatives / agents / actors / participants, or their employees or employees of their subsidiaries, etc., unequivocally for the record: i have no intention of doing that anyway, so it's a moot point, in my case. i bet someone dumb (and deserving) enough to post an actual threat on their site would get arrested- and rightfully so. delivered or not, a threat is a threat. if i threatened you in the newspaper, just because you don't read the newspaper doesn't mean i didn't threaten you. i bet some jackass somewhere's made threats on their blog; there's always some idiot dumb enough to do just about anything. but incidentally, and also for the record, i'm not in the habit of threatening people either, thank you.

actually, i had a conversation about this blog the other night with Loren's mom, when she had a problem with something i wrote. evidently something i wrote hurt her feelings, she felt like i was making fun of her. i told her that i was sorry that it hurt her feelings (true), and that it wasn't my intention to hurt her feelings (also true), but that this blog isn't written for her benefit, but for my own, as sort of a running diary, and i'm well aware that it's available to the public, and everything i've written in here is true. and also that i hadn't written anything in here that i hadn't already said to both Loren and her in person, which was also true. and also that i've never mentioned her by name, so if the reader doesn't know me, there's very little chance they have any idea who/what i'm talking about anyway.

i wonder if that's what prompted her to fly off the handle last weekend....

ever notice that that's a truly strange expression, "fly off the handle". wonder where that one comes from....

i suppose i might feel differently if this was a widely circulated blog or something. but i don't circulate, there's no pushed content here. you gotta WANNA read this thing to check it out. and i've watched the usage stats, and basically [sniff] hardly anyone reads this thing but me anyway. and my sister, evidently, as of today. thanks Sis!

actually, i'm certain the number of people that have loaded this page and just clicked right off it due to finding it extremely boring is greater than the number of people who might actually read it. which is fine. don't like what's on TV? change the channel. more power to ya.

i think i've had too much time sitting around by myself thinking about stuff, i'm getting loopy. must be time for bed. gotta work tomorrow anyway, to make up for time lost when i had to go to court to deal with all this crap i don't deserve. especially considering i'll be missing some more time on Wednesday. time waits for no man, and neither do the bills.

felt good to vent, if you can call it that.....PEACE all